the object used as the basis of comparison, the case you have compared to it would not be analogous to it. For the people who supplicate to Allah and acknowledge that He is living and possesses power and knowledge supplicate only to One whom they believe to be the Lord of all worlds, who can do what human beings cannot: send down rain, cause plants to grow, still the wind when it rages at sea, and other things sought from Allah. They therefore know that the living One who possesses knowledge and power—the Lord of all worlds, who sends the winds bearing glad tidings ahead of His mercy, until, when they carry heavy clouds, He drives them to a lifeless land and sends down water, whereby every kind of fruit comes forth—is not of the same kind as the human beings familiar to them. Rather, what they seek from Him is beyond those human beings’ power.

Moreover, many of them may not conceive of both as living and possessing power and knowledge, nor form any notion in their minds of something common to both. How, then, can it be permissible to claim that human beings, from the earliest to the latest generations, have drawn an analogy between Allah and the human beings they have observed?

The twenty-eighth point: If you were to ask anyone who supplicates to his Lord, “Have you believed in your heart that Allah is of the same kind as the human beings you have observed, who are living and possess power and knowledge?” the person you asked would reply, “This has never crossed my mind.” His revulsion at this, and his condemnation of anyone who says or believes it, would be greater than his revulsion at anyone who considers angels to be of the same kind as flies and sparrows. In short, human beings know from